The Well Woman Show on August 12, 2016

With so much going on in our lives, it can be easy to get caught up in negative thinking. My business isn’t successful enough; I don’t have enough money or time; my neighbor is doing better than I am. When we get into this cycle of thinking, we forget about all of the amazing, positive things that are happening in our lives (I have a business, I have money and time, I’m doing the best I can do for myself), plus, we feel miserable. According to Our Gratitude Collective founder Antonia Montoya, it is in those moments that self-care through gratitude is the absolute most important and useful tool we have. It both reminds you of all that you do have, and changes your perspective so that you feel genuinely happier with however your life currently looks.

Today I speak with Antonia Montoya, founder of Our Gratitude Collective, a virtual community space for practicing gratitude, feeling connected, and becoming inspired. Antonia works with entrepreneurs to use gratitude to overcome their career challenges and stresses to find greater balance and success. She also presents her evidence-based work at conferences and events throughout the world. Today I talk with Antonia about the value of practicing and sharing gratitude, her personal path to career success and wellbeing through gratitude and daily self-care practices, and the highs and lows that led her to where she is today.

Antonia practices gratitude daily, and she recommends you do too. Her approach to gratitude is a three-step process, and differs from other approaches in that she encourages community development through gratitude. She feels that

Antonia’s appreciation for gratitude and self-care comes from a history of putting others’ needs before her own. In past life and work situations, she would “surround [herself] with people that needed a lot of help, and therefore I seemed like I was doing great.” Instead of addressing her own wellbeing and issues, she could hide in others’ problems. In reevaluating her priorities, she’s come to find that she is her most successful when her health and wellbeing come first.

This healthful balance was challenged a few years ago, which prompted her to stop drinking. She found herself constantly justifying her drinking because she could justify, “I obviously don’t have a drinking problem because look at how much ‘so and so’ drinks.” She found herself again falling into patterns of hiding her own problems in those of others. She came to decide to end drinking, actually, through gratitude. Reflecting on when she was most and least grateful, she came to see that when she was drinking (or after a night of drinking), she struggled to find anything to be grateful for. Realizing that her alcohol use was affecting her in this way, she could no longer hide behind the justification that others drank more than she did.

Antonia admits that, even today, she finds herself falling into cycles of becoming too busy or placing others before her. At least now she “knows when I catch myself thinking like that, then [self-care] is what I need to do at all costs.”